Unlike some other postings, today is a spectacular Monday with a bright blue sky and an unobscured sun that makes the lawn and the plantings around the Koi Pond seem that much greener and more vivid. I have a "roadie" planned this week with a trip in a 17-foot UHaul truck to Monterey to clear out the old underwriting files from our storage unit there and then a trip across three states to Phoenix, Arizona. The fact that the weather is ideal makes the prospect of this trip seem a little brighter. I have a local hauler meeting me at the storage location tomorrow morning to help me load the truck and then four guys at the company end of the trip to unload. I may supervise at the unloading as the guys will all be in their twenties. I finally, after seven years, feel like I actually work for a susidiary of UHaul. I guess I had a similar feeling on 9/11 when I drove the box truck home from Vegas. For some reason life is never boring here in Nor Cal.

Darla and I went out this weekend and finally bought a new sectional sofa for the family room. We've been living with a garage sale sectional that Darla re-upholstered in a delf blue design. We likely would have replaced it sooner, but she put in two months of work on that sofa. She had done the work back in 1999, so we got four years out of the sofa. It was one of her purchases that she "surprised" me with when I got back from golf one weekend. She'd grown tired of my sofa that I brought into the marriage and knew that we couldn't afford a new one at the time. I just smiled and watched her work her hands into a blood streaked state as she sewed and stitched and refashioned that sofa into a new appearance. It was an awesome job and we are finally passsing that on to a thrift store and we will enjoy our new sofa from Brueners with the double reclining seat and the 18 foot surround size. It is a "coffee" tan color with a velour appearance and manufactured by Lane. Darla and I are finally updating our furniture. We bought a new dining room set complete with china hutch last year and will update our bedroom furniture next. Once we are done with furniture, we will look at some new floor coverings in the house, both carpet and wood flooring.

Surprise! I DID play golf this weekend at Whitney Oaks in Rocklin. It is a championship course and one of the toughest in the area. We played Saturday morning and I played with Greg Meacham, one of David's football coaches and the father of one of his best friends. Greg is a six handicap and we played through a light drizzle that turned to a shower on two of the holes. I managed an 89 and beat Greg by a stroke. It was a wet, soggy day and we were banished to the cart paths on several holes due to the wet conditions. The course was designed by Johnny Miller who is a well known sadistic golf course designer. This course is no different in his stable and includes several holes with sand traps in the middle of fairways and a par five with a huge outcropping of boulders 120 yards from the pin. I've played the course four times and hit my second shot into those boulders four times. I even had Greg, who is a member at Whitney, help me line up my second shot and I hit it perfectly for a layup to the left of those rocks. I hit the 150-yard yardage marker in the middle of the fairway and skipped into the boulders. I cursed the ground that Miller walks on and took a drop and a bogey on the hole. The course was a large cattle ranch years ago and there is a crypt for old man Whitney next to the sixteenth green. It is a huge pyramid shaped out of granite and we saluted the old man as we played through. It was a great day.

I talked to Dad and Jennifer over the weekend and their visit together was going well. Jennifer was looking through picture albums and laughing at her Dad in confirmation robes and braces and Halloween costumes. My ears were burning when I got home from dinner on Saturday night and now I know why. I took Darla and the boys out to Black Angus, a steak restaurant, on Saturday night and those two six-footers enjoyed prime rib, appetizers and dessert.

David's basketball team bounced back from their first conference loss on Wednesday night with a 15-point route of the Placer Hillmen on Friday night. They are now 7-1 in league and 16-3 overall. David continues to start at small forward or "wing" as they call it in high school. He is averaging eight points a game and plays tenacious defense. Darla and I have really enjoyed the basketball season. They have two weeks left and finsh the year at Rocklin, the only team to beat them. We have some payback for them that night.

Well, I have to go run some errands and get some cash for my trip. Darla will be here in an hour to take me to the Uhaul center. I wanted to update my blog before I got out of town. Hope you are all healthy and happy. Ciao.